List of WNBA seasons

[1] The league was founded in 1996 by the men's National Basketball Association (NBA) as a wholly-owned subsidiary and began play in the 1997 season with eight teams.

[2][3] WNBA shares the same court dimensions, hoop height, and shot clock length as NBA, but has had shorter quarters of ten minutes each since 2006 and uses a smaller ball to match with international FIBA standards.

[13] Five regular season games in early June are played against teams in the same conference to determine qualification for the WNBA Commissioner's Cup, an in-season tournament first played in 2021; the final is hosted by the team with the better win–loss record in qualifying games.

Since 2022, the playoffs have used a best-of-three series in the first round, where teams are seeded based on regular season performance, and a best-of-five format for the semifinals and WNBA Finals.

Under the cross-conference format, top-seeded teams received single or double byes and some rounds had single-elimination games instead of a best-of-five series.